Development and validation of an Academic Involution Scale for College Students in China

• Published in: Psychology in the schools Vol. 61; no. 3; pp. 847 - 860
• Main Authors: Wang, Feng (Robin), Yang, Yanchao, Cui, Tianxue
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.03.2024
• Subjects: Anxiety; Behavior; Chinese college students; College students; competition psychology; Confirmatory factor analysis; involution; Motivation; Psychological aspects; Psychology; reliability; scale development; Social Behavior; Validity; China
• ISSN: 0033-3085; 1520-6807
• DOI: 10.1002/pits.23087

The term “nei juan” (in English “involution”) has become a buzzword in recent Chinese tertiary educational contexts, denoting the intense competition and anxiety among Chinese college students. This project aims to develop a reliable and valid scale measuring Chinese college students' competitive psychology, that is, an Academic Involution Scale for College Students in China (AISCSC). To this end, the scale was administered online to 1015 Chinese college students from a university from the Northern China. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a determination of three factors (i.e., academic behavior, social activity, and social relationship) with a strong psychometric basis. The correlations between students' academic anxiety and their involutional behavior further confirmed the concurrent validity of AISCSC. Practitioner points Academic behavior, social activity, and social relationship constitute three major dimensions of academic involution for Chinese college students. Involution in the context of education is a multifaceted issue with political, social, and psychological dimensions beyond anxiety, pressure, and competitive motivation that have been previously studied. Unlike the previous studies highlighting the negative psychological effects of involution, Academic Involution Scale for College Students in China (“AISCSC”) was moderately and significantly related to the academic anxiety of the subjects.